Famous Sprinkles Cupcakes & An Afternoon in La Jolla

Since I started working from home a little over a year ago, I've become a little antsy about needing to get out and about on the weekends. While many people (including my hubby) enjoy relaxing on the couch or patio after a long week of work, I feel the need to get out and have a change of scenery. So, I usually try to come up with at least one afternoon trip each week - whether it be walking the beach, going out to dinner, wine tasting, or, in the case of this weekend - cupcake hunting!

I know that cupcakes have been all the rage for several years now, but I honestly haven't jumped on the bandwagon. I think I've had 2 cupcakes from "cupcakeries" in 3 or 4 years, maybe? But, when I heard the famous, "original" cupcakery "Sprinkles" had a location nearby us in La Jolla - I had to go. According to celebrities and blogs, these high-quality, uniquely-flavored cupcakes are the cupcakes to end all cupcakes.

So, off we went to La Jolla. The store isn't too fancy - just a small shop in a shopping plaza near the University of California-San Diego:

I didn't spy any celebrities in line, but I did spy a whole lotta cupcakes:

They had a few of the classic flavors you'd expect to see, like red velvet, chocolate marshmallow (like a Hostess®) and vanilla. But many of their flavors were things I'd personally never seen before in a cupcake - s'mores, vanilla hazelnut, peanut butter chocolate, cinnamon sugar. While they all looked good, we narrowed it down to 4 with a little help from the friendly servers:
 Clockwise, from the top left: Banana, Coconut, Chocolate Marshmallow, S'mores.

I'm a sucker for s'mores, so I dug into that right away. It had an amazingly rich semi-sweet chocolate ganache in the center of light, fluffy chocolate cake, with a graham cracker bottom and that ooey-gooey toasted marshmallow on top. It was delicious! If it was warm, it would've spot on tasted like a s'more to me - well, perhaps a refined version with that luxurious ganache. (Sorry but "America's favorite chocolate" can't hold a candle to that...)

Hubby had the coconut then, which had a denser cake, but still very good flavor. We saved the other 2 for the next day, and they were still nice and moist. The thing I think I liked most about all of the Sprinkles cupcakes is that they weren't rot-your-teeth-out sweet. You know how sometimes frosting can get that way? Not Sprinkles frosting. It had a great balance between being sweet enough to be a dessert but still really letting the flavor (dark chocolate, coconut, vanilla, etc.) shine through. The only cupcake I wouldn't order again was the banana. It was really just banana bread with frosting on top, which is something I can easily make at home - not worth $3.50 in my opinion.

But, I assure you that La Jolla, CA is much more than just gourmet cupcakes! One of our favorite places to visit is the cove and Children's Pool Beach. I love walking on the rocks and listening to the waves:
  And when we're lucky, getting to see the seals sunning themselves and playing in the water: 
There's also a nice main street you can walk around. Definitely a fun little town!